Society, Schools and Culture

A significant factor deterring the emergence of a powerful
aristocratic or gentry class in the colonies was the fact that
anyone in an established colony could choose to find a new home
on the frontier. Thus, time after time, dominant tidewater
figures were obliged, by the threat of a mass exodus to the
frontier, to liberalize political policies, land-grant
requirements and religious practices. This movement into the
foothills was of tremendous import for the future of America.

Of equal significance for the future were the foundations of
American education and culture established during the colonial
period. Harvard College was founded in 1636 in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Near the end of the century, the College of
William and Mary was established in Virginia. A few years later,
the Collegiate School of Connecticut, later to become Yale
College, was chartered. But even more noteworthy was the growth
of a school system maintained by governmental authority. The
Puritan emphasis on reading directly from the Scriptures
underscored the importance of literacy.

In 1647 the Massachusetts Bay Colony enacted the "ye olde deluder
Satan" Act, requiring every town having more than 50 families to
establish a grammar school (a Latin school to prepare students
for college). Shortly thereafter, all the other New England
colonies, except Rhode Island, followed its example.

The first immigrants in New England brought their own little
libraries and continued to import books from London. And as
early as the 1680s, Boston booksellers were doing a thriving
business in works of classical literature, history, politics,
philosophy, science, theology and belles-lettres. In 1639 the
first printing press in the English colonies and the second in
North America was installed at Harvard College.

The first school in Pennsylvania was begun in 1683. It taught
reading, writing and keeping of accounts. Thereafter, in some
fashion, every Quaker community provided for the elementary
teaching of its children. More advanced training -- in classical
languages, history and literature -- was offered at the Friends
Public School, which still operates in Philadelphia as the
William Penn Charter School. The school was free to the poor,
but parents who could were required to pay tuition.

In Philadelphia, numerous private schools with no religious
affiliation taught languages, mathematics and natural science;
there were also night schools for adults. Women were not
entirely overlooked, but their educational opportunities were
limited to training in activities that could be conducted in the
home. Private teachers instructed the daughters of prosperous
Philadelphians in French, music, dancing, painting, singing,
grammar and sometimes even bookkeeping.

In the 18th century, the intellectual and cultural development of
Pennsylvania reflected, in large measure, the vigorous
personalities of two men: James Logan and Benjamin Franklin.
Logan was secretary of the colony, and it was in his fine library
that young Franklin found the latest scientific works. In 1745
Logan erected a building for his collection and bequeathed both
building and books to the city.

Franklin contributed even more to the intellectual activity of
Philadelphia. He formed a debating club that became the embryo
of the American Philosophical Society. His endeavors also led to
the founding of a public academy that later developed into the
University of Pennsylvania. He was a prime mover in the
establishment of a subscription library, which he called "the
mother of all North American subscription libraries."

In the Southern colonies, wealthy planters and merchants imported
private tutors from Ireland or Scotland to teach their children.
Others sent their children to school in England. Having these
other opportunities, the upper classes in the Tidewater were not
interested in supporting public education. In addition, the
diffusion of farms and plantations made the formation of
community schools difficult. There were a few endowed free
schools in Virginia; the Syms School was founded in 1647 and the
Eaton School emerged in 1659.

The desire for learning did not stop at the borders of
established communities, however. On the frontier, the
Scots-Irish, though living in primitive cabins, were firm
devotees of scholarship, and they made great efforts to attract
learned ministers to their settlements.

Literary production in the colonies was largely confined to New
England. Here attention concentrated on religious subjects.
Sermons were the most common products of the press. A famous
Puritan minister, the Reverend Cotton Mather, wrote some 400
works. His masterpiece, Magnalia Christi Americana,
presented the
pageant of New England's history. But the most popular single
work of the day was the Reverend Michael Wigglesworth's long
poem, "The Day of Doom," which described the last judgment in
terrifying terms.

In 1704 Cambridge, Massachusetts, launched the colonies' first
successful newspaper. By 1745 there were 22 newspapers being
published throughout the colonies.

In New York, an important step in establishing the principle of
freedom of the press took place with the case of Johann Peter
Zenger, whose New York Weekly Journal begun in 1733,
represented
the opposition to the government. After two years of
publication, the colonial governor could no longer tolerate
Zenger's satirical barbs, and had him thrown into prison on a
charge of seditious libel. Zenger continued to edit his paper
from jail during his nine-month trial, which excited intense
interest throughout the colonies. Andrew Hamilton, the prominent
lawyer who defended Zenger, argued that the charges printed by
Zenger were true and hence not libelous. The jury returned a
verdict of not guilty, and Zenger went free.

The prosperity of the towns, which prompted fears that the devil
was luring society into pursuit of worldly gain, produced a
religious reaction in the 1730s that came to be known as the
Great Awakening. Its inspiration came from two sources: George
Whitefield, a Wesleyan revivalist who arrived from England in
1739, and Jonathan Edwards, who originally served in the
Congregational Church in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Whitefield began a religious revival in Philadelphia and then
moved on to New England. He enthralled audiences of up to 20,000
people at a time with histrionic displays, gestures and emotional
oratory. Religious turmoil swept throughout New England and the
middle colonies as ministers left established churches to preach
the revival.

Among those influenced by Whitefield was Edwards, and the Great
Awakening reached its culmination in 1741 with his sermon
"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Edwards did not engage
in theatrics, but delivered his sermons in a quiet, thoughtful
manner. He stressed that the established churches sought to
deprive Christianity of its emotional content. His magnum opus,
Of Freedom of Will (1754), attempted to reconcile
Calvinism with
the Enlightenment.

The Great Awakening gave rise to evangelical denominations and
the spirit of revivalism, which continue to play significant
roles in American religious and cultural life. It weakened the
status of the established clergy and provoked believers to rely
on their own conscience. Perhaps most important, it led to the
proliferation of sects and denominations, which in turn
encouraged general acceptance of the principle of religious
toleration.